The Gathering Storm

“My lord.” She gazed at him with tears in her eyes, perhaps blinded by his beauty or overcome by the scent of rose water that clung to him. “I am Deacon Adalwif, who watches over this flock on behalf of God, our Lord and Lady.”



“You are Wendish,” he said with surprise.



“So I am, my lord. My own people have their lands near Kassel, but after I came into orders, I walked east to preach among the Salavii heathens. Here you find me.” She nodded toward their audience, who watched in respectful silence. “They are good folk, if rather simple, but their piety and hard work have proved them godly. You see that we have accomplished all of that task which Presbyter Marcus of Darre set before us two years ago. The stones are raised. Now we are engaged in erecting a church in order to hallow this ground and to keep the old heathen spirits away.”



“You have done well.”



“We do our best to serve God, my lord.” She hesitated as if to ask a question, but did not. “Now you have come.”



“Here I will stay for the time being. I pray you, Deacon Adalwif, what day is it?”



She nodded. “Brother Marcus told me that within the holy crowns the days might pass in different wise to that on the profane Earth. I have kept a careful track of days so that my flock may celebrate the feast days, as is fitting, and so that children may be named in honor of the glorious and holy saints. It is the feast day of St. Branwen the Warrior.”



He smiled, although a certain tension squeezed the curve of his lips. “A glad day for arrivals! We departed Aosta most propitiously on the feast day of St. Marcus the Apostle.”



“St. Marcus!”



“It has taken far longer than I had hoped to come here.”



“Fully five months.”



“Almost six.”



“All these passed through in a single night?”



“In a single night,” he agreed, glancing up the hill, but the massive earthworks and the curve of the hill hid the crown from view. “Yet,” he mused, “what matter if six months pass in one night? We must wait here until Octumbre in any case, preparing for what is to come. I have a strong company to attend me, Deacon, as you have seen. We shall finish building your church. Then we will erect a palisade since this place was the scene of a fearsome battle not many years past.”



“True enough.” She nodded gravely. “We remember those days well, my lord. Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia brought a strong force here, but the Quman overset them and drove them northwest. In the end, so they say, Prince Sanglant saved us. All the Quman are driven out and will never return.”



A shift in the wind made Hugh grimace, chaff blowing into his eye, but he smiled quickly and gestured toward the neat camp his servants had already begun to set up. “So we must pray, Deacon. If we are patient, and strong, all our enemies will be laid to rest.”



2



HE drowned under the bones of the world. A whisper teased his ears, and he opened his eyes into a darkness relieved only by a gleam of pale gold light that emanated from his left arm. Amazed, he waited for his vision to come and go in flashes, to fail again, but the gleam remained steady as he looked around.



He lay in a low chamber carved out of the rock by intelligent hands or shaped by more persistent forces. The floor had been swept clean of rubble. To his left the slope of the chamber created a series of benchlike ledges along the wall. Creatures crouched there, curled up with bony knees pressed to chests and spindly arms wrapped tight up against their shoulders. Many wore bits and pieces of ornaments slung around thick necks, odd scraps they might have scavenged out of a jackdaw’s nest, most of which glittered with sharp edges and polished corners. The creatures had faces humanlike in arrangement, yet where eyes should stare at him, milky bulges clouded and cleared. He could not tell if they watched him or were blind.



With a grunt, he sat up. The movement made his head throb, and he had to shut his eyes to concentrate on not vomiting. At last his throat eased and his stomach settled, although the pounding ache in his temples pulsed on and on. The air was comfortable, not truly warm or cold; the air hung so still that he could taste each mote of dust on his tongue.



One of the creatures moved, arms elaborating precise patterns as it rubbed fingers one against the others, against its arms, and against the rock itself, clicking and tapping. The voice was not precisely voice but something more like the grinding together of pebbles.



“What are you?” it said.



“I am,” he said. “I am …” It was like flailing in deep water as the riptide drags you inexorably out to sea: “I have lost my name. It is all gone.”